


some old fires were burning

by audenrain



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M, Mage Hawke (Dragon Age), Set During DA:I
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-26
Updated: 2020-09-26
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:40:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,354
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26665312
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/audenrain/pseuds/audenrain
Summary: Hawke laughs, so long and so loud that he worries they’ll wake up the castle. The tendons in her throat stretch and the hollow of her collarbone fills with candlelight as she leans her head back, her skull making a soft thud against the stone wall. “You bastard,” she says, though he doesn’t know what he’s being scolded for.“I aim to please,” he replies, vague. Outside, he’s only just noticing, there are crickets chirping.
Relationships: Background Dorian/Iron Bull - Relationship, Female Hawke/Varric Tethras, Hawke/Varric Tethras
Comments: 7
Kudos: 64





	some old fires were burning

**Author's Note:**

> i can’t believe the trailer for da4 has invigorated the hawke/varric fandom!! finally i can post the shit i write for them! anyway this was a warm up to help me remember how to write (anything, at all, it’s been years) but i’m not done with these two.
> 
> title is from fiona apple’s “slow like honey”.

He spends a good ten minutes considering how to bring it up, watching Hawke’s back as she walks, and the little clouds of sand gusting up behind the heels of her boots. Below the knee her legs are coated in the stuff, turning her greaves dull and pale. She’s in a sour mood, and if he couldn’t tell by the tension in her shoulders and her clipped stride, then he certainly would have puzzled it out by her utter lack of acknowledgement when he quickens his pace to walk beside her.

“You took me by surprise back there,” Varric says, as casually as he can while nearly at a jog. Hawke glances sidelong at him and then slows down to let him walk. He can tell she resents it, but she doesn’t voice it; only scowls a little at the distant shapes of the rest of their party, cresting a dune a good fifty feet ahead.

“How’s that?”

“All that talk about blood magic and being alone with your actions. Reasons not mattering.”

Hawke takes a long drink from her waterskin and swipes a gloved hand across her mouth. She says nothing.

“I seem to recall you felt differently about Daisy’s forays into-”

“ _Do_ you,” Hawke says, her voice flat.

“You know, maybe this is better saved for another time when you’re not so pissed off.” Varric takes a swig from his own waterskin. “Or at least sometime when I have something a little stronger than water in here.”

“Maybe your memory’s failing in your old age,” Hawke suggests. Her face is still stony, but there’s a little humour bleeding through in her voice. “You know you have a white hair in your ponytail?”

“I do _not_ ,” Varric says, but touches the back of his head anyway to make her smile. It almost works.

“You do, actually, it’s right-” Hawke reaches over, and Varric is too surprised to duck away in time - there’s a sharp pain in his scalp, and then Hawke is dangling a decidedly blond hair in his face. “Oh, my mistake. Must’ve caught the light wrong.”

“Very funny, Chuckles.”

Hawke does smile then, with half her mouth. It fades quickly, but he takes it for an apology. He’s decided, by then, to let it go for now - pushing will only get him talked in circles and possibly end in further hair loss. He takes a breath to change the subject, but Hawke beats him to it.

“The Inquisitor asked me about Anders,” she says, as if it’s an offhand remark. She turns her face away, as if her attention has been caught by the fennec bounding past. “When we first met, at Skyhold.”

“Well, that’s understandable,” Varric says. “He’s nearly as famous as you.”

“Has she read your book, then?” Hawke asks, looking straight ahead again. The Inquisitor is out of sight, over the hill that he and Hawke are still climbing, but Hawke looks as if she’s willing herself to see through the sand.

“I don’t think so. Never asked, though. What did you say?”

“Something I would have been ashamed for him to hear.” Varric looks over to see her pushing sweat-damp hair off her forehead. “I didn’t want to sound biased.”

“And you think I’m not?”

“Well,” she says, and makes fists of her hands. The leather of her gloves creaks as she relaxes them. Varric feels a burst of fondness right in the base of his throat. All the time that’s passed since he’s seen her seems like nothing, all of a sudden, as she makes that familiar, anxious little gesture that says _Why can’t my armour have pockets to shove my hands into_. For a moment, he could swear they had been sitting in the Hanged Man just last week, trying to teach Daisy how to keep a poker face.

“There are an awful lot of templars around Skyhold,” Hawke says, and the memory dissolves. She’s looking at him now, rather intently; the scrutiny makes him stop in his tracks. She stops, too, turning to face him and crossing an arm over her middle to fiddle with the straps on her pauldron.

“True enough.” Varric feels the urge to fiddle with something, himself, but he squares his shoulders and meets Hawke’s eyes. “You don’t need to prove yourself to the Inquisitor, Hawke. If she considered you a threat, you’d know about it by now.”

“Easy for you to say. You’re not a former apostate responsible for setting loose the greatest terror the world has seen since the Blight _and_ starting a war that’s threatening the very foundations of the Chantry. Is she the religious sort?”

Has she been feeling this way the whole time she’s been at Skyhold? Suddenly he’s replaying every time he’s found her skulking in unused corners of the courtyard or tucked away on the battlements with a book or her journal. Has she been trying to keep a low profile? _Hawke_?

Varric gathers himself. “Andraste’s tits, Hawke, you can’t do this. You were a domino in a line of hundreds of other dominos, and that first piece fell long before you were even born.” He leans in, like somehow that will get his point across. “You didn’t start this and you certainly couldn’t have stopped it.”

Hawke shifts her weight onto her back foot. “Oh, very well, if you insist,” she says breezily, in a way that says she’s ignoring every word, his clumsy reassurance rolling off her like water off a druffalo’s back. He expected nothing less, but disappointment sits heavy in his gut.

He opens his mouth before he’s settled on what to say, but as it turns out, it doesn’t matter. The Inquisitor is calling for them, her voice faint on the wind but impossible to ignore.

“We should get to camp,” Varric says, and Hawke nods. They don’t speak again until they’re within earshot of the others, at which point Varric launches into the denouement of a story Hawke probably has memorized by now, just for appearances’ sake. And she had truly missed her calling as an actor, because she laughs as if she’s hearing it for the first time.

  
  
  
  
  


The long ride back to Skyhold is solemn. The Inquisitor is deeply frustrated that they hadn’t been quicker to the punch, and Cassandra has to talk her down from mounting a six-man invasion of Adamant. When the portcullis finally closes behind them and Varric hands his horse’s reins off to a waiting stableboy, all he can think of is getting into a real bed and sleeping for as long as he’s allowed. It’s barely dusk, but he’s bone-weary and aching from days in the saddle. Hawke laughs and teases him about his age for the second time that week, but he points out the Inquisitor, already heading to the war room. Who knows how little time he has before they’re heading out again?

“Suit yourself,” says Hawke. “I think I could use a bite to eat.”

Varric might warn her that food in Herald’s Rest isn’t quite up to snuff with what the cooks prepare in the castle, but then he remembers the mystery meat at the Hanged Man and thinks better of it. He’s gotten spoiled, here.

Sleep is a colossal mistake, unfortunately. He wakes with an unpleasant start, inexplicably anxious and with a fine sheen of sweat on his upper lip. He lies there for a moment, staring up at the ceiling and willing himself to sink back into the blissful void, but it’s useless. His body still feels like he’s been trampled by horses, but his mind is racing.

“Shit,” he mutters, and gets himself dressed. The water in the washbasin is tepid and a little clouded with soap from a few hour ago, but he splashes it over his face anyway.

Outside, the night air is brisk and sweet, with that crystalline quality the mountains always have. Varric likes his room above the gardens, where it’s quiet no matter what time of day it is. He’s shielded from the noise of the courtyard, which is now considerable: the banners are flapping in the mountain winds, the dogs are howling in their kennels, and the sound of drunken revelry is pouring out of Herald’s Rest, whose doors and windows are flung wide open, no doubt to let out the stale smell of bodies and beer. Maker, but he misses the Hanged Man sometimes, sticky floors, dirty glasses and all. 

Herald’s Rest isn’t so different, of course. There are people stumbling out into the fresh air, laughing and leaning on one another, saying lengthy goodbyes and getting caught up in new animated conversations; there are two men arguing in a slurred and uncommitted fashion as their friends try and convince them to let it go; there’s a couple leaning up against the wall in the shadows, kissing in such a way that Varric tries not to look too long.

The main difference is nostalgia: the world was a simple place in those days, for all that Varric hadn’t thought so at the time. The petty politics and roiling unrest of Kirkwall had seemed all-consuming. He wishes he could give his past self a little talking to. He ought to have appreciated it more.

As he nears the open door where the golden torchlight spills out onto the lawn, he can hear Maryden singing. He doesn’t recognize the tune; one of her new ones, perhaps.

He finds Hawke quickly enough. She’s sitting with the Chargers - and Dorian, who’s perched on the arm of the Iron Bull’s chair with one foot on the ground. Isn’t that interesting. The Bull is sitting straighter than usual, none of his characteristic sprawling, like he’s trying not to touch Dorian and also trying not to seem like he’s making any effort at all.

“Varric!” says Hawke, the first to notice his approach. She throws back the last swallow in her cup. “You have impeccable timing, I was just about to get another ale. Do join me.”

“I’d be delighted,” Varric says. “Sparkler, has no one here been gentleman enough to offer you a drink?” The Bull and his Chargers have plenty left in their cups, but Dorian’s hands are conspicuously empty.

Dorian jolts, leaning forward a little till his other foot touches the floor. “No, thank you, I really should be going-”

“Ah, you’ve been saying that for an hour,” Hawke says, waving her hand. “You can’t leave now; I’ve been promised your story about the bogfisher with the runs ruining that magister’s party. If you don’t tell me what you want, I’ll let Varric surprise you!”

The Bull hides a smile in his tankard.

Dorian opens his mouth and then licks his lips. “Heaven forbid,” he says. “Wine, then. Whatever’s open will do. Thank you.”

“Excellent!” Hawke heads off to the bar, and Varric follows. She’s bathed since they parted ways: he can tell by the little dark spots where her hair has dripped on her shoulders and back. She’s dressed casually, in dark leggings and a loose white shirt with the sleeves rolled up to her elbows. The fabric is thin, and she hasn’t done the buttons up all the way. 

Cabot takes their order and heads into the back room to open a bottle of wine, grumbling all the while.

“So,” Hawke says, turning to face him with an elbow up on the bar. Her shirt stretches tight across her chest, but Varric is looking her in the eye. He has become an expert in this, in avoiding what’s right in front of him. Sightlines can be a bitch. “I thought you’d retired for the night. Get a second wind?”

“Maybe I was worried about you,” Varric says. “Seems you’re getting along very well, though. You certainly made a good impression on Tiny, over there.”

Hawke hesitates, her eyebrows raising just a hair.

“Not like that,” he adds, alarmed. “I mean, you talked Sparkler into staying. I think the Bull’s been trying not to spook him, but he doesn’t come in here much.”

“Oh,” says Hawke, looking over at them. Dorian is smiling at something someone has said, but he still looks a little tense. “Well, I imagine not everyone here is as welcoming as you and Iron Bull.”

“Here you bloody are,” Cabot says, setting down a goblet of wine and two cups of ale and rescuing Varric from having to come up with a reply. He had not, actually, made all that much of an effort with Dorian, although he liked him, and Hawke’s words - her casual assumption that he had - made his stomach churn. He had always been friendly, but there was a difference between geniality and seeking a person out.

“Thanks,” Hawke says, and, being used to surly bartenders, she tips Cabot generously. “Let’s not keep them waiting, then; Dorian looks like he could use something to relax him a little.”

Varric grabs an ale and Dorian’s wine and follows her back to their corner. A small table has been pulled into the centre of their circle of chairs, but it’s mostly being used as a footstool, so Varric gives the wine directly to Dorian. Hawke is dragging over a chair and good-naturedly ordering Stitches and Dalish to make space. It feels good to watch her own a room again.

Varric stays for three drinks and says little, chiming in only when he finds Hawke’s storytelling a little lacking. She has the charisma to keep a crowd’s attention, but she forgets the details sometimes. She has one boot up on the little table, and the other leg is spread wide enough that her thigh is pressed up against Varric’s knee. It reminds him of playing Wicked Grace, when Hawke used to try to psyche them all out by touching her feet to different legs and watching their faces jump. Everyone else at the table assumed it was due to a good or a bad hand of cards, and made terrible bets as a result. It only worked a few times of course, but it was pure Hawke, and the sort of thing he’d kept out of the book even though he could not have invented a better distillation of her character.

By the time he decides to head out, Dorian is deep into his second glass of wine and is leaning into the Bull, ever so slightly, while the Bull murmurs to him, too quiet to be heard. The two of them are oblivious to the story Hawke’s telling of the time she had to fight off a group of Lowtown thugs in her underwear with nothing but a length of fishing wire, and Varric takes a moment to appreciate the picture they make. Maybe Maryden will write a love ballad for them.

He lets Hawke finish her tale, and then says, in the rare moment of silence that follows it, “Well, I certainly don’t have anything in the arsenal that can top that one. Nothing unpublished, anyway. It’s been a great night, but I think I’m going to sleep off this fine brew.”

“That’s probably wise,” Hawke says, and stands up with him. “Thank you all for a delightful time; I do hope you remember my name in the morning.”

“‘Course we will; the Chief raised us right,” Krem says. “Fellas, say goodnight to Falcon! No, no - Eagle!”

Hawke laughs too loudly at that - she must be tipsier than he thought, because it wasn’t especially witty, and she’s still giggling as they step out into the night. It must be two or three in the morning, now, and Varric finally feels weary enough to sleep again. But they’re nearly to the top of the castle stairs when Varric realizes that she shouldn’t have followed him out. “Don’t you have a room in the tavern?” Varric asks. He feels slow. The fresh air is doing disappointingly little to sober him up. 

“Yes,” says Hawke, and then trips a little on the landing, catching herself with a hand on Varric’s shoulder. “Wait, are you actually going to sleep? I thought you just wanted to get away from the noise.”

Varric groans. “Maker, Hawke, that’s the oldest line in the book. Trust me, you couldn’t afford a night with me.”

“Don’t I know it,” Hawke agrees, and heaves a deep, dramatic sigh. “I’ll have to settle for a little of that Antivan brandy I know you’ve got stashed away, then.” Evidently she can feel Varric’s hesitation, because she adds, “Just a nightcap, and then I’ll be out of your hair.”

And because they are, by now, halfway to Varric’s room, and because he does not have the energy to walk her back to the tavern, and because Hawke’s hand has slipped from his shoulder to the crook of his elbow like he’s her escort to the royal ball, and because he has never, ever been able to say no to Hawke, he tells her, “Just a nightcap, then.”

  
  


  
  


Hawke has always been able to drink with the best of them. Varric has already made his peace with the possibility that his Antivan brandy - more costly than his gold chain and twice as dear - may well be gone by the morning. But once in the confines of his room - smaller than his old place in the Hanged Man, with really only enough space for a bed, a dresser and a foldable little writing desk - Hawke is more subdued, and her first sip is small. She doesn’t swallow right away, but her mouth is working, rolling the liquor over her tongue.

“That’s lovely,” she says, when she finally swallows. “It’s been ages since I’ve had the luxury.”

“Well, me too,” Varric admits. “Haven’t been in much of a celebrating mood, lately.”

She’s sitting on the edge of his mattress, and Varric doesn’t much care for the rigid chair he uses to write - in fact, its lack of comfort is a feature which keeps him on track to meet his deadlines - so he kicks off his boots and joins her, putting his back against the headboard so he’s facing her. 

“Surely the Inquisition would provide a larger room, if you asked,” Hawke says, looking around. The single candle on the desk is doing the place no favours; the flame is too feeble to reach the corners, and the result is a little cocoon of light that might, with anyone else, feel claustrophobic. “You’re obviously... well respected.”

“I chose this room, actually.” Varric nods at the window, which sits just above the desk. “I like the view.”

Hawke hums, leaning forward to consider the garden below. “Well, it’s certainly nicer than the alley outside the Hanged Man. It was always a coin toss whether you’d hear fucking or fighting out there, as I recall.”

“Sometimes both, simultaneously,” Varric adds, and Hawke laughs, although it wasn’t a joke. She scoots back on the bed till her back is up against the wall, toeing off her boots and stretching out her legs. Long, even for a human. Her trousers always hit a little higher on the ankle than they should.

“It’s funny,” says Hawke. “I thought - well, I’d expected you’d be staying in the tavern, too. Is it too highbrow for you?”

“Highbrow!” Varric snorts. “Think I just needed a break from having to sleep with earplugs in.”

“Right.” Hawke is examining the hem of her shirt, for what purpose Varric can’t tell. “What did you mean, earlier, that you were worried about me?”

 _When am I not?_ Varric shrugs, stalling by taking a slow drink from the bottle. “We didn’t finish our conversation in the Western Approach. I didn’t want you to think I forgot, or that I wasn’t taking you seriously.”

“Oh, well, I don’t make myself easy to take seriously.” Hawke waves a hand in the air, dismissively, and then makes a grab for the bottle. Varric holds it out of her reach.

“Listen,” he says. “I know you’re not sticking around any longer than you have to. But if you really think you’re in any danger, let me talk to her. She means well. I really think so, anyway.”

Hawke shakes her head and makes another pass at the bottle. This time, Varric lets her have it, but she doesn’t drink. “Forget I said anything, really. I’m much more useful as an ally than - than anything else. I know that. It’s just been a while since I had to piss next to a templar, that’s all.”

“Hawke…” He’s going to say, _They’d have to go through me first._ That’s how he knows he’s too drunk for this.

He can’t tell whether she’s waiting, actually expecting anything to follow, or whether she’s just looking at him in the glassy unfocused way of all drunk people. The candlelight flickers yellow in the ferocious blue of her eyes, and she’s either thinking very hard about something or thinking nothing at all. Varric wishes he’d passed out an hour ago. After a moment she smiles, takes a sip from the bottle and looks out the window again.

“It’s the lyrium,” he says finally, and she looks over at him with a raised eyebrow. “That’s what makes their piss smell so weird. Worse than asparagus, if you ask me.”

Hawke laughs, so long and so loud that he worries they’ll wake up the castle. The tendons in her throat stretch and the hollow of her collarbone fills with candlelight as she leans her head back, her skull making a soft thud against the stone wall. “You bastard,” she says, though he doesn’t know what he’s being scolded for.

“I aim to please,” he replies, vague. Outside, he’s only just noticing, there are crickets chirping.

“It’s all right,” she says, sounding very steady now, as if she’s suddenly sensed he’s in some need of reassurance. “You know I trust your judgment, Varric.”

Varric doesn’t know what to say to that. The booze is still buzzing in his head, and picking through his thoughts feels slow and arduous. He’ll come up with a reply; it just might take a minute, is all.

The next thing he knows, he’s jolting upright to the sound of a door slamming, somewhere out in the hallway. Hawke is gone, and her boots too; the bottle of brandy is sitting, corked, on his writing desk. His tongue feels heavy and dry and his teeth are fuzzy. It’s still black out, but he stumbles over to his washbasin, unable to withstand feeling like something has died in the back of his throat.

Hawke’s left him a gift: the water in his washbasin is clean and warm, the basin itself still too hot to touch. He scrubs his teeth with powder and splashes the water on his face and neck, and goes back to bed.

  
  
  
  


It takes the Inquisition three days to prepare for their march to Adamant. The flurry of activity might impress Varric had he not seen it replicated a few times by now. Hawke is busy for much of that time: she and Stroud are often wanted in the War Room to consult on strategy. Varric spends the evenings with her in Herald’s Rest - “Why is the blasted place named for her if she never shows her face?” Hawke demands to know, one night, gesturing with her empty cup. “They ought to call it the Chargers’ Nest!” And that drew a round of cheers and laughter that shook the rafters - and eats his meals when she does, even though her hours are strange and unpredictable.

“Now, don’t get sick of me,” she tells him on the third night, pointing at him with a forkful of kidney pie - as if she’s the one rearranging her schedule for him. They’re tucked away in a corner of the Rest, up on the second floor, and it’s still early enough in the evening that the place is all but deserted.

“I’ll do my best.” Varric drags a hunk of pie crust through the glossy sauce left on his plate. “I doubt I’ll have the chance, though. Word is we move out tomorrow.”

“Mm,” says Hawke, whose mouth is suddenly full.

Varric narrows his eyes at her. “Hawke.”

“What?” Hawke swallows with effort. “You know I can’t confirm or deny any gossip. I’m very in the know, these days. Don’t worry; I won’t take your place or anything. I don’t think the Inquisitor finds me quite as entertaining as you.”

She’s meeting his gaze too squarely, like she’s forced herself to do it. “You’re hiding something,” Varric says. “Come on, out with it. Or shall I go fetch my draft of the next _Swords and Shields_ and start reading aloud?”

Hawke grimaces. “Well, you’re going to find out anyway. We do move out tomorrow,” she says, lowering her voice. She runs her tongue along her teeth, sits back in her chair and starts to grind a little morsel of crust on the table into dust beneath her finger. “You… aren’t coming with us.”

“The hell I’m not,” Varric snaps, hackles rising. Hawke puts her hands up in surrender and tips her chair back a little, like a child fidgeting in school.

“It’s entirely out of my hands.” Nevertheless, Hawke is wearing her guilty face. “You know who calls the shots around here. But maybe…”

“Maybe what?” He can hear how pissed he sounds, and distantly he understands how misdirected that anger is, but Hawke is using her _now, be reasonable_ voice, and he’s never been a fan of that one.

“Maybe it’s not such a bad idea. It’s safer here, and-”

“ _Safer?_ ”

Hawke winces. “Now, that _did_ come out wrong.”

Varric laughs despite himself. “I had no idea I looked like a blushing maiden to you, Hawke. I’m flattered, really.”

“All I’m saying is we don’t know how bad it’s going to be. And Skyhold needs defenses - archers in particular.”

“Bullshit,” Varric scoffs, but it’s pure habit. There’s no point in fighting it out any further when, as Hawke said: this time, she’s not the one calling the shots. Still - “Since when are you so concerned with risk levels? What, was my performance in the desert somehow not up to snuff?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Hawke says silkily, pushing her chair back and gathering their mostly-empty plates. “You always perform beautifully, Varric, I have it on very good authority.”

She must be really desperate to get out of this conversation if she’s clearing the table. She’s already halfway down the stairs when Varric comes up with a good retort, and he’s not about to shout it across the tavern.

“We’re not done with this,” he calls instead, but when she returns it’s with two cups of good strong whiskey and a solid piece of gossip from one of the cooks and so, as it turns out, they are.

  
  
  


Hawke heads to bed at a reasonable hour, on Varric’s insistence that he has a looming deadline, anyway, and wouldn’t be able to forgive himself if she was riding out hungover.

He would like to storm into the War Room, where the Inquisitor is no doubt still holed up, and demand to know what the hell her problem was. It’s what he would do when he felt Hawke was making a particularly stupid decision. He knows he ought to accept it without complaint, that the chances of changing the Inquisitor’s mind are slim in even the most trivial of situations. He settles for a compromise of loitering in the hallway till the great oak doors creak open and her advisors file out. Cullen has bags under his eyes; they all look tired, really, and hardly spare him a glance. He slips past them and into the room, where the Inquisitor is bent over the enormous table, staring at the little markers scattered across the maps like pieces of a board game.

“What is it,” she says, turning around, her expression shifting from impatience into wariness when she sees who it is. “Varric. Hello.”

“Got a minute, your inquisitorialness?” he says, and she smiles.

“Of course.” She straightens up and clasps her hands behind her back. “Though I think I know what this is about.”

“Oh?”

“Trust me, Bull is none too pleased to be staying behind, either.”

“I should be going on this operation. I was there in the Approach, I know what we’re walking into. Sera gets spooked by demons. I’ve been fighting them for years.”

“I’m taking Cole, actually.” The Inquisitor relaxes her stance, leaning back against the edge of the table.

“Cole? He’s going to be so distracted by the fear and torment of all those possessed mages he won’t be able to walk straight.”

“I have complete faith in his focus,” the Inquisitor says serenely, picking at a loose thread on the cuff of her shirt. “But I wouldn’t talk of distraction, if I were you.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You and Hawke make a formidable team. I’m truly impressed. It takes years to form that kind of synergy, and I have the utmost respect for it.”

“Spit it out, Your Worship.” But he doesn’t need her to: he can see where she’s headed.

“Old habits die hard, that’s all. You’ve been watching her back for a decade or more, and however true your loyalty to the Inquisition may be, those instincts are still there. She is your dearest friend. Is she not?”

Varric says nothing. He knew he would get nowhere; maybe he only came to get a reason. Now he has one, he should excuse himself. What he _wants_ is to tell the Inquisitor that Hawke doesn’t owe them shit - that everything she does here is because she’s _good_ , and doing good in the world matters to her, and if she’s going to risk life and limb for the world once again _,_ then at the bare _minimum_ she deserves someone there who’s looking out for her.

He compromises with himself.

“Just - at least take me on the march,” he says. “I’ll stay back at the camp, I don’t have to mount the attack, but you might need an extra pair of hands on the journey. You never know.”

The Inquisitor smiles again, so kindly that he knows there’s no chance of her budging on this. “We’ll be back before you know it,” she insists. “You’ve been complaining of letters piling up from the Guild; you’ll keep busy, I’m certain.”

“Sure,” he says, longing for the days when he’d taken Hawke’s orders by choice instead of some sworn oath. “Just promise me you’ll keep something in mind, then.”

“What’s that?”

“None of this is her fault.” Varric waves a hand around the room, at the maps and their troop markers and the stacks of reports piled up at the end of the table. “Hawke has spent her whole life cleaning up her family’s messes, and Corypheus is only the latest in a long line.”

“Of course.” He can’t read the Inquisitor’s expression. “Have I given the impression that I blame her?”

“It doesn’t matter. What matters is, _she_ thinks it is, and I need someone there who doesn’t. If it can’t be me…”

“I understand,” the Inquisitor says. She takes a step forward, reaching out as if to put a hand on his shoulder, but then she seems to think better of it. “I promise.”

Varric isn’t sure if he believes her.

  
  
  
  


Hawke hugs him before she leaves, not for very long but tight enough that her fingers dig into his shoulder, just on the edge of pain. He can’t remember the last time they hugged. It leaves his limbs heavy with dread.

  
  
  
  


Time passes at a crawl.

When he isn’t writing letters or serials, Varric spends his days playing chess with Dorian and letting Sera teach him card tricks. He becomes a fixture at the Chargers’ table, and to no one’s surprise, so does Dorian, who no longer looks ready to bolt at a moment’s notice. Krem is shockingly good at Wicked Grace - Varric starts to take notes - and mercifully, no one talks of the march on Adamant. It’s not only for his benefit, he supposes; Sera is not exactly pleased to be left behind either, and it gives Varric some comfort that she couldn’t change the Inquisitor’s mind, either. He’s seen the way they look at each other.

If Varric were writing this story, he wouldn’t learn the outcome of Adamant - or Hawke’s fate - until he watched the procession march back through Skyhold’s gates. Lucky for him, then, that he isn’t. In reality there are patrols all along the mountainside, and the Inquisitor sends her scouts ahead to meet them, so that days before she returns all of Skyhold knows of her success. It’s a smart move: it means that when she arrives, it will be to cheers and jubilation rather than bated breath.

The scouts also report the presumed death of Warden Stroud, and the news that the Grey Wardens, leaderless and greatly diminished, have allied with the Inquisition. It’s bound to be controversial - the Wardens have never bowed to anyone, and it will be harder to insist they’re apolitical when they’re taking orders from the Inquisition - but it’s probably necessary if they’re to survive at all.

“No other significant losses, then?” he asks the messenger, just to be sure.

She shrugs. “Nothing else to report, ser.”

The mood in Herald’s Rest that night is raucous, their collective relief exploding in too many rounds of drinks. Sera bullies Maryden into playing them some jigs and reels and there is dancing for the first time since Haven; she whirls Dagna across the makeshift dance floor, their steps unskilled but enthusiastic. Varric wins his first hand of Wicked Grace against Krem only by virtue of being the soberest person at the table, and later, as he’s making his way across the darkened courtyard back to the castle, he catches sight of Dorian and Bull, kissing in the shadows of the training yard.

Well, Varric thinks as he crawls into bed, if they have to spend three or four more days waiting, at least the atmosphere has improved.

  
  
  


It’s the sensation of something cold on his throat that pulls him out of sleep, and he strikes out blindly at whatever it is only to connect with something soft and yielding.

There’s a cry of pain, and then laughter, and in his drowsy state it takes him a half-second longer to piece things together than it should.

“Hawke?” His voice cracks, rough with sleep, and he sits up, casting around for the matches he keeps by his bed. “What the fuck?”

She summons a little ball of light in her palm, enough to illuminate her face in a pale green glow. “All right,” she says, her other hand curled over her stomach protectively, “I probably should have seen that coming.”

“What the fuck,” Varric says again, scrubbing his face with his hands. “How are you here?”

“I rode ahead,” says Hawke, sitting down at the end of the bed. “Not long after the scouts were sent out. Hang on-” The candle on the desk bursts into life with a wave of her free hand and she extinguishes the green light. “Your people keep this area very well patrolled. I knew it was safe enough.”

“Right.” Varric reaches for the waterskin by his bed and empties it in two gulps. “And the icy hands on my neck were for…?”

“I really shouldn’t have to explain why that’s funny, Varric. The punch in the gut, less so, but on the whole I have no regrets. The _sound_ you made-”

“Okay, okay. Andraste. Well, I’m glad you’re all right. I figured as much, when they said Stroud…”

Hawke’s face goes solemn in a heartbeat. “Yes. It’s terrible. I tried to-” She stops, pulling her lips into her mouth and biting down.

“I know you did,” Varric says, because Hawke has always tried her hardest to save people. She shakes her head, as if frustrated, but then she turns to face him fully, drawing her legs up onto the bed. She puts a hand down by his knee, and leans on it, tilting towards him. “Hawke?”

“It was fucking awful,” she tells him, serious as anything. “I wished you were there to watch my back, but I’m still glad you weren’t.”

“What happened?”

“The Fade,” says Hawke, looking down at her hand. The knuckles are a little scratched up; it looks fresh. “We went in - I mean _in_. Bodies and all. It was wrong - it felt wrong enough for me, I can’t imagine how it would’ve felt to someone who’s never been, even in dreams.”

“Shit,” Varric says. It’s not much of a reply, but he doesn’t even know where to start. That any of them made it back is no small miracle.

“Yes.” Hawke shifts closer. Varric’s instinct is to draw a knee up to his chest, but he doesn’t for fear the movement of the blanket will dislodge her hand and spoil - spoil what? “That about sums it up. I did actually think I wouldn’t be coming back, for a moment there. So if I do something stupid, you’ll understand, won’t you?”

Hawke is close enough that he can see the tiny scar in her left nostril, where she had let Isabela talk her into piercing it. He remembers the shriek she made as the needle went in - more shock than pain - and the way it had dissolved into laughter as Isabela showered her face and hair with conciliatory kisses. Weeks later it had turned swollen and angry, and she had taken far too long to admit defeat and take the little metal stud out. She carried the wound for long enough that Anders talked her into letting him cast a healing spell on it; but still, the scar remained, a little white sunburst.

And then she puts the other hand on his shoulder, bracing herself, and right as he takes a breath to ask her what kind of stupid they’re talking, she kisses him.

Her lips are warm and dry; her hair is brushing his forehead. He can feel his pulse, in his fingertips, in his chest, in his throat. He makes a sound, involuntary and meaningless, and immediately wishes he could stuff it back into his stupid mouth, because Hawke pulls away.

“I’m sorry,” she says, a little out of breath. She licks her lips. “But I’m just not one for pining. Or, I suppose I have been, but I’ve had enough of it now. I’d rather we get this over with, and then I’ll move on - maybe to see Carver - he’ll want to know what happened-”

“Over with,” he echoes.

“Yes, go on,” says Hawke, sounding steadier now, and much too bright, “let me down gently like the Knight-Captain has to let down the apostate in volume three.”

She could not have put together a string of words better designed to derail his train of thought. “When did _you_ read _Swords and Shields_?”

“I wanted to bond with Cassandra,” Hawke says, such a bald-faced lie that Varric stares up at her in wonder. “It really is drivel, though, and I say that with only the greatest fondness-”

She’s leaning back again, her hand falling away from his shoulder, as if the conversation switching gears is Varric’s diplomatic way of turning her down. How very Hawke, to devise the manner of her rejection and try to carry it out without his consent.

Varric follows.

“You know,” she says, as he puts a hand on her waist, “a lesser woman might think this sends mixed signals.”

Varric has never loved her more: her wry, self-deprecating manner, her alacrity in the face of every blow life has dealt her, the way she has always blushed too easily. Her face is flushing pink, even in the low light.

“Then let me clarify,” Varric says. His heart is too big for his chest, and when he leans up to kiss Hawke again, it feels like prying open his ribcage. It really almost hurts. Hawke’s hand is on his shoulder again, and then the other is at the back of his neck and he realizes that her palm is clammy. He has a wild thought, to touch the small of her back, the crooks of her elbows, the backs of her knees, anywhere else he might find the physiological proof to contradict years of doubt and self-sabotage. Hawke is sweating for his touch.

Her tongue is brushing his lower lip, an invitation, and he has never denied Hawke a damn thing in their lives together. She tastes a little sweet, like anise, or fennel - had she been chewing herbs before she came to see him, to freshen her breath? He can’t even tease her for it - he can’t say a word. He’ll hold onto that knowledge like the treasure it is. Hawke is kissing him, but more than that, she had come here tonight thinking of nothing else.

He spreads his fingers, feeling the notches of her ribs and the swell of her hip, and she shivers.

“You bastard,” Hawke whispers, when they take a breath. Her fingers are pushing through the hair at the base of his skull. “What have we been doing all this time?”

“Beats me.” Varric slides his hand around into the small of her back to pull her closer. “Dancing around each other, I guess.”

“Idiots,” says Hawke, pressing her forehead against his.

“Cowards,” Varric agrees.

“Move over,” Hawke tells him, pulling back and twisting her body sideways, gently guiding him towards the wall. She’s lying on her side facing him, propped up on an elbow, and he mirrors her. She’s still dressed in her travel clothes, still dusty from the road, but at least she shed her armour before she came to see him. “Do you remember the last time we did this?”

He does. They had been drunk, and he had fallen asleep in her bed where the two of them had been drinking and playing a game of cards to which neither of them quite remembered the rules. He had woken to see her lying next to him, the blanket still strewn with playing cards, and she had teased him for days about not being able to hold his drink.

“I wondered why you didn’t just kick me out,” Varric admits. Hawke looks almost sheepish.

“I couldn’t bear to,” she says. “You looked so peaceful.”

Varric feels a familiar urge, to take her hand or brush the hair out of her eyes, to touch her _somehow_ , and he’s halfway through suppressing it when he remembers he doesn’t need to. He lays his hand over hers on the bed between them.

“I almost didn’t come back,” Hawke says. Varric raises his eyebrows. “To Skyhold. I volunteered to go to Weisshaupt, actually. To let them know what had happened.”

“You didn’t think a letter would’ve sufficed?”

The corner of Hawke’s mouth curls, just a little. “It will have to, now.”

“So what changed your mind?”

“I decided I needed closure.” Hawke huffs out a laugh, looking at his hand on hers. “I thought I would come here, throw myself on your unwilling person, and then be out of the keep before the sun rose. I expected we’d give it a few months, and then maybe exchange some letters, maintain a friendly correspondence, and eventually things would be back to normal.”

“Sounds boring,” Varric says, and Hawke smiles, rolling into him until she’s pressed up against him, laying her hand on his chest.

“What will we do instead?” she asks, tracing the notch of his collarbone with the pad of her thumb.

“I don’t know,” says Varric, slipping his arm around her to cushion her head. “We can figure it out in the morning, can’t we?”

“Oh, you know me,” Hawke says, and without warning she extinguishes the light with a flick of her wrist, leaving them in near-darkness. Through the window, the first grey hints of daylight are appearing on the horizon, but there are still stars in the sky. “I’ve always been more about figuring it out as I go along.”


End file.
